Alf Bamblett

Alf Bamblett is the chair of the National Aboriginal Justice Advisory Commission, one of the partners in the newly formned National Coalition of Aboriginal Organisations. He joins us to talk about why tendering out Indigenous legal services won't improve justice for Indigenous people.

Transcript of Interview with Alf Bamblett

Nancia Guivarra: The reality of black Australia is entering a new phase. On the 1st of July the mainstreaming of funding for indigenous programs, formally controlled by ATSIS, ended an era of self-determination for Indigenous people.

It’s an action which Australia’s only black parliamentarian, Senator Aden Ridgeway describes as putting indigenous people into a straight jacket of mono-cultural society.

It’s no surprise then that this year Indigenous protest action has been on the increase in the struggle for recognition. Only this week in Tasmania, the deputy Prime Minister, Peter Costello, was confronted about the impending introduction of tendering for Indigenous legal services and last week in Victoria four Indigenous bodies came together to form a new national coalition of Aboriginal organisations to lobby government in all areas.

One of the major issues they’re tackling is the issue of providing legal services for Indigenous people.

Alf Bamblett is an elder and the executive officer of the Victorian Aboriginal Community Services Association and he’s also the chairperson of the Federal National Aboriginal Justice Advisory Commission. He’s got more than twenty years experience in the formation and management of Indigenous organisations in Victoria. First I asked him, what’s wrong with tendering out indigenous legal services?

Alf Bamblett: Most of the legal services that I’ve had anything to do with across the nation and things that I know of them operate quite effectively. I know that they’re under funded; I know that in terms of the comparison to Legal Aid, the Aboriginal Legal Service lawyers are paid less. The ability to be able to then make sure you got proper staff; the ability to attract

Nancia Guivarra: Good staffing?

Alf Bamblett: is less when there’s less dollars of course. There are other sorts of things that it has to be Aboriginal Legal Services by and for the people and that’s the way they’ve been run since that split from Legal Aid. There’s the sort of things about trying to ensure that the representation is proper and what it should be, there’s cultural aspects to it and there’s a whole heap of, there’s a lot of work a lot of ground work that Aboriginal Legal Services have put in over the years that you wouldn’t want to lose. They’ve been an integral part of the development of Aboriginal Affairs and all of those things I think are vitally important.

There are some legal services in the nation that say okay bring it on let’s do the tendering and we’ll see where we go with it. Others are less forward in their approach to it but in the end of the day we’ve got to try and make sure that we can get the best quality product that is Aboriginal Legal Services by Aboriginal people, for Aboriginal people that we can possibly get. If the system and the tendering process takes that out of the hands of Aboriginal community then we really do have problems and we’ll be going back to the days when everything was done for us rather than with us.

Nancia Guivarra: Can non-Indigenous law firms or private firms; can they deliver culturally appropriate services for Indigenous people?

Alf Bamblett: No, my understanding of the tendering process you know they can do half a day cultural training and say we know it now and that’s all they’re obliged to do, as little as that or they could more. But at the end of the day they cannot be the replacement for Aboriginal legal services, Aboriginal programming and Aboriginal services run by Aboriginal people. I mean if in fact non-Aboriginal programs and services had been working effectively for Aboriginal people would we have had the need for Aboriginal-specific services. No.

If they were doing they’re job properly in the first place, no we wouldn’t have. But because they weren’t doing their job properly, because the mainstreaming issue was leaving Aboriginal people at the end of the queue or not seeing them we’ve had to develop our own services and our own programs. Now that’s the greatest argument for us not returning to mainstreaming.

Nancia Guivarra: In fact Alf, wasn’t the Redfern Aboriginal Legal Service, the actual first community-run legal service in the country.

Alf Bamblett: It was, it was.

Nancia Guivarra: So by example Indigenous people are leading for the provision of the services that eventually became available for everyone in legal, health and housing services.

Alf Bamblett: Yes that’s right and we have this fight all of these years to ensure that the services remain and there are government officials and pollies that in fact have commended over the years, commended the development and operation of Aboriginal-specific services and it serves those purposes that they’ve been established for. So I mean you get to where we are this particular point in time where you know looks like legal services are going to be struggling then let’s not repeat it, let’s not throw out the baby with the bath water. Let’s try to fix up what’s wrong without there being all of the problems in saying well we’ll go outside the Aboriginal community for the service delivery.

Nancia Guivarra: Given that the Shadow Attorney-General Nicola Roxon said a Labor Government would withdraw the tendering process. Do you think Indigenous people will be better off under a Labor Government?

Alf Bamblett: To my mind political parties are political parties. You try in Aboriginal Affairs and what I’ve tried to do over all the time that I’ve been involved is to ensure that there’s an a-political approach so that in fact its not that party, its not that party but what in fact is the best way of doing business for Aboriginal people. Some of those pollies are nice people, they’re people too some of the people that you have to deal with are maybe not so nice but there are the sorts of things that at the end of the day that the politics of Aboriginal Affairs needs to be across whatever political parties there are.

Nancia Guivarra: So the legal tendering process is something that the Coalition is going to tackle. What are you going to do about it?

Alf Bamblett: Well its one of the things undoubtedly in the justice area that we’ll be talking to the people that we do about, the minister that we deal with and others that have an influence, involvement and influence. It is about trying to make sure we look after those services that are doing the job.

Nancia Guivarra: Alf Bamblett, Elder and Victorian leader.

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